Silencing the Dead by Will Harker (ereader ebook .txt) 📕

mother losing her temper, but when she did it was always a sight to behold. Everyone avoided her during those times, even my father. Now, caught up in this memory I hadn’t thought of in years, I wondered if perhaps the rage that so often coiled under my own skin might have deeper roots than I’d realised.

Emerging into the huge clearing, I parked in one of the hundreds of bays that had been spray-painted onto the ground just outside the fair. It was late afternoon and dusk was already stealing in. Soon, every generator would be switched on and those vague columns and spirals that loomed against the sky would define themselves into thrill rides and Ferris wheels. In the meantime, only the glow of trailer windows and my own headlights relieved the gloom. That, and a border of multicoloured bulbs flashing around the billboard that overlooked the carpark:

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH JERICHO FAIRS, EVERTHORN MEDIA

WELCOMES YOU TO

PURLEY RECTORY

THE MOST HAUNTED HOUSE IN BRITAIN!

JOIN US THIS HALLOWEEN NIGHT

FOR A LIVE EDITION OF TV PHENOMENON

GHOST SEEKERS

WITH RENOWNED MEDIUM DARREL EVERWOOD

SPOOKY FUN FOR ALL THE FAMILY!

I got out and stood beneath the pulsing glare. I liked this no more than my father, but in recent years special events around which a fair could open for a few days were a necessary evil. For some time, the travelling fair had been a dying industry, its overheads enormous, its appeal to the public little more than a fading sense of nostalgia. To survive we had to piggyback on more modern spectacles. This haunted house bullshit was just the latest in a long line of stunts that, to my mind, cheapened the purity of our heritage.

The aspect of the whole thing that grated most was to see our family name associated with a two-bit chancer like Darrel Everwood. In principle, I had no problem with harmless con artists. In fact, it could be argued that showpeople themselves had their roots in thrills and spills trumpeted with dubious claims. But Everwood was no benign sideshow huckster. His claim to communicate with the dead was not only absurd but deeply damaging. For one thing, there was the case of Debbie Chambers, the little girl who had gone missing from her front garden just before Easter.

In an interview with a leading tabloid newspaper, Everwood had claimed that the child had died only hours after being taken and had been buried somewhere close to the Chambers’ residence. For Debbie’s parents, clinging to any scrap of hope that their daughter might still be alive, the subsequent media shit-storm had proved devastating. If I remembered rightly, Mrs Chambers’ attempted suicide had been prevented only because her husband had forgotten his briefcase and returned home unexpectedly. Even then, cutting her wrists had led to permanent nerve damage and a vow from Mr Chambers that, if he should ever meet Darrel Everwood face-to-face, he could not be held responsible for his actions.

As if echoing these thoughts, a voice called out across the carpark, “Revolting man, isn’t he?”

I turned to find Angela Rowell coming towards me. When we’d arrived yesterday, the housekeeper of Purley had received us by storming out the door of the Victorian rectory and shrieking at Big Sam Urnshaw like a banshee. His lorry had trespassed over the agreed boundary of the fair; didn’t he know the stipulations of the contract? No vehicle must come within fifty metres of the house. If he didn’t get his load shifted right away, Miss Rowell would be on the phone to the Earl of Aumbry, absentee owner of the property. Looking suitably horrified, Big Sam had jumped back into his cab and backed up halfway across the clearing.

Standing beside me, she now jabbed an outraged finger at the billboard.

“As I said to your father when negotiations for this absurd spectacle began, I’m not a tremendous fan of travelling circuses.” I let the mistake pass. “But next to this charlatan, I would welcome a hundred carnivals. The sheer nerve of that man!” I turned to her. Miss Rowell’s hands were clasped so tightly together that the knuckles stood out, sharp and bloodless. “They… That’s to say, they…” She shook her head. “They don’t like it up at the house, you know.”

“You mean the Earl?” I said. “I thought he never came here?”

“Not in years. As far as Lord Denver is concerned, Purley is a mere curiosity in his property empire. I think he enjoys the bragging rights of owning the most haunted house in England, but otherwise, he’s pretty much indifferent.”

“So you’re talking about?”

“The residents.” She held my gaze for a moment before letting it slip to the ground. “The personalities who call the house their home. They cannot abide an imposter, Mr Jericho.”

“You mean the ghosts?” I said, making a heroic effort to keep a straight face.

“Personalities,” she corrected. “And jealous ones at that. Mark my words, they shan’t tolerate the likes of Mr Everwood within their walls. There have been consequences in the past for those who have sought to exploit this place.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes,” she said matter-of-factly. “Madness. Suicide. Murder. However it manifests, the residents of Purley always take their pound of flesh.”

CHAPTER THREE

It might have been easier to dismiss Angela Rowell had she been anything like the ludicrous figure on the billboard in front of us. In his guise as celebrity medium, Darrel Everwood was cradling a crystal ball while simultaneously holding out two hooked fingers to the viewer in what I supposed was either a warning or a blessing. Mascara gave a piercing quality to his stare while his trademark cocky grin completed a look that set many a bereaved heart aflutter. Still in his twenties, cynics argued that Everwood owed his success as much to a pretty face as to his dubious hotline to the dead.

Miss Rowell, meanwhile, was a very different kettle of fish. With her bouffant hair cemented into place, she looked like a Margaret Thatcher clone that had fallen upon hard